Friday, November 30, 2012

Wallfisch Violin Concerto Premiered by LACO & Stanislav

Review by Rodney Punt

The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra sported something of a
British accent at its latest mid-November outing. Premiered was a new violin
concerto by the English-born and until recently London-based composer, Benjamin
Wallfisch, who also conducted the program. LACO commissioned the concerto for
Tereza Stanislav, who performed it on the occasion of her tenth anniversary as Assistant
Concertmaster with the orchestra. The evening had begun with Sir Edward Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro for Strings and concluded with Beethoven’s
second symphony.

Wallfisch now resides full-time in Santa Monica (since 2010) and divides his
time between film and concert music as composer and conductor. He describes his concerto as exploring the violin’s “extremes as a
lyrical instrument and fiery virtuoso machine.” Written in three movements with
an extensive cadenza, it reflects “extraordinary feats of human agility and
aggression” with contrasting passages adding to the dramatic
tension that leads to the climax.

I caught the second of its two performances over the weekend, this one at UCLA’s Royce
Hall, and found the work full of brilliant colors and quite accessible, for all
its tonal dissonance. The first movement suggested a cluttered clash of urbane
sensibilities, the second a series of long and soulful utterances that collectively
became the work’s central statement, and the finale a lapidary exploration of subtle interplay between soloist and orchestra. As a welcome entry into the concerto
repertory, only its first movement seemed in parts problematic. Orchestral
textures might have been a bit overwritten; certainly they were overbalanced.
While Stanislav’s violin was busy in middle-register filigree, the orchestra’s
fusillade of aggressive colorations dominated the soundscape and all but
drowned her out.

There was nothing problematic about Stanislav’s performance,
however. With her sweet tone, brilliant phrasing, uncannily pointed rhythm and pure
intonation (even at the violin’s highest and lowest extremities) she delivered a convincing advocacy for the concerto. The LACO commission brought not
only this intriguing new work to the concert stage, but also confirmed the aristocratically
poised Stanislav as one of the finest exemplars in a highly competitive field
of Southern California violin virtuosos.

Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro for
Strings is a work for string quartet and string orchestra that displays virtuosity as it evokes both the grandeur and frivolity of Baroque-era concerti grossi. Its
dotted rhythm introduction reminds one of Handel’s similar treatments.
Following this are a series of lovely English and Welsh tune treatments that
give the work evocative and appealing dignity, occasionally a kind of lyric
grandiosity. Wallfisch had his LACO strings lean deep into their bowings to
produce a rich-toned tapestry that sacrificed nimbleness for velvety sheen and
a certain lugubrious pomposity not at all unidiomatic in the piece. It was a
performance of tone over pulse, but charming in its own veddy English way.

Likewise, Wallfisch’s monumental approach lent LACO’s rendering of the composer from
Bonn’s Symphony No. 2 in D Major a
big-boned Beethovenian luster, rather than its oft-misplaced
categorization as a last nostalgic gesture toward the classicism of Haydn and Mozart. The work’s rhetoric and its textures were handled well -- the winds and brass had a field day -- and every
tempo seemed gauged as perfectly as the British rail system in its halcyon days.The performance confirmed this sometimes overlooked symphony as just one temperamental step
away from the Eroica that
was to follow a couple of years later. As a consequence, LACO sounded a lot like its older and heftier counterpart at Disney Hall.